


Disclosure

by orphan_account



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Coming Out, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Pre-Sburb, transgender character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-24
Updated: 2018-04-24
Packaged: 2019-04-27 12:22:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14425326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Dave Strider comes out as a boy.





	Disclosure

It’s 9pm and you’re on the futon watching a movie with Bro. Or more accurately, Bro is watching his movie on his futon and you’re just encroaching on his space like a leech, because you need something from him. 

It’s not like you usually ask him for favors. Normally, you’re chill as a motherfucking glacier freeze Gatorade (which is the only good flavor by the way), and you’d never ask him for anything you didn’t earn, but this is different. You tell yourself it’s different. Maybe to him it would sound petulant and stupid, just like most of the other shit you ask him for. More clothes, more food, blah blah blah, big fucking baby. 

You’re— You’re not trying to be annoying, even though you know that you probably are; you haven’t said anything yet but you’re fidgeting like crazy and Bro hates it when you do that. If you kept still he might be more likely to listen to you. You try. Maybe giving yourself some space to think will make telling him easier. 

Right now, it seems like an impossible thing to confess out loud, but you know at least in your own mind that it’s true: you’re a boy.

It took a long time to work up the courage to do anything at all about it. Your status as a boy started out as just an online thing, a test of the waters before you cannonballed ass-first into the deep end. It stuck, though, because once you had met John and Jade and Rose you liked the feeling of hearing them call you by your boy name so much that there was no going back. You’d always thought that they would find out the truth someday but none of them have ever accused you of not being what you said you were. It felt good. You gradually gained a little more confidence. And then came the day that you buried all your skirts and dresses in the back of your closet. 

Small stuff. It never seemed real until recently. Two weeks ago, Bro caught you beginning to cut your hair and he smacked the scissors out of your hand so suddenly you almost stabbed yourself with them. Ever since then he’s been keeping a close eye on you and a close eye on his scissors. He doesn’t like not having control over you, you think. Which is why you need to tell him.

But, god, the idea of confessing is so terrifying that it literally keeps you from sleeping. You’ve spent night after night lying awake in bed imagining scenarios where he rejects you. Sometimes he only laughs at you, other times he takes you by the back of the shirt and drags you to the roof and doesn’t let the strife end until dawn breaks. When you really let your imagination wander you think of him driving you out to the desert and burying you there. You’ve seen what happens to transgender people on TV, in the movies you and Bro watch, on the news. 

You don’t _want_ to tell him. As shameful as it is to admit, you’re scared. But you have to, because you can’t keep living like you are. It hurts too much. You’d think it would hurt less, since he doesn’t even talk to you long enough to misgender you, usually, but that lack of acknowledgement just makes it feel more like a slap in the face when he _does_ use your given name. You need to tell him. He’s your whole world.

“Bro?” You ask, and then feel ashamed for shattering the quiet atmosphere. It’s not really your place initiate things, you’ve learned that by now, and your voice seems loud and jarring against the low volume of the TV. Bro doesn’t look annoyed though, just tilts his head a bit to let you know you have his attention.

Ah. Okay. Fuck this is a lot harder when he’s looking at you. Even under partial scrutiny you feel yourself beginning to shut down. Mayday, mayday, man down: said man is being a little bitch again. Abort mission. Bro is probably expecting you to ask about like, dinner, or something, not about yourself, and never about being ‘transgender’ of all things. You’re such a joke. This was a mistake and you shouldn’t have said anything. 

He turns to look at you for real after a long, painful minute of silence and fidgeting on your end. It really isn’t a good idea for you to be breaking your poker face like this, ha. Super uncool. You stare at the TV screen without really seeing it and hope, hope, hope, that for once you get lucky and he tolerates what you’re about to say. It’s humiliating, but you’re okay. You don’t look at him. Moment of truth.

“.... Can you... Call me Dave, from now on?”

No answer.

Bro doesn’t react at all. All he does is stare at you for what seems like a very, very, very long time. Your heart is beating so fast you think it might explode. 

You realize belatedly that he paused the movie; it’s probably been paused ever since you started talking to him. The silence in the film’s absence is heavy. It’s so quiet that you can hear the tick, tick, tick of Bro’s ironically chosen wall clock as the seconds go by. Should you take it back? All of the so-called confidence you had steeled yourself with earlier has morphed into stomach-wrenching shame. You need Bro to say something soon or you’re going to start rambling like crazy. 

You can’t look at him. Well, okay, in your defense, the movie’s pause screen is hells of interesting and there’s no way you’re tearing your eyes away from this absolute cornucopia of eye-candy. (You wouldn’t be able to read his expression anyway. It doesn’t matter.) Not moving at all is making you kind of restless, though. Should you apologize and try to slink back to your room? At least if you faced him you would feel less vulnerable to sudden attacks, even if he’s so quick that looking at him wouldn’t really help. Any moment he’s going to backhand you across the face and it will be your fault. You brace yourself, unable to meet his eyes, and wait for that moment, but it doesn’t come. 

He only stares at you. It’s just the two of you, and his stare.

When the silence finally breaks you nearly flinch, knowing that you’re about to die and you completely botched your chance at having some really heroic last words.

“Okay,” Bro says, then unpauses the movie, nonchalantly, as if he was over it. “Dave.”

**Author's Note:**

> So that’s my first fic! Technically it’s a re-upload of something I first posted two months ago, but then took down because I wasn’t satisfied with it at the time. Feedback is of course welcome!
> 
> For context, I headcanon Dirk (and therefore Bro by extension) as a trans guy, so I don’t think he would react badly to Dave coming out as a trans guy too.


End file.
